Marin Takikawa is a literary agent with The Friedrich Agency.

Before joining TFA in early 2021, I got my start as an assistant to three agents at Foundry Literary + Media, following internships at The Book Group, Folio Literary Management, and Triada U.S. Born in Tokyo and raised in Singapore and NYC, I graduated from the University of Rochester with degrees in English and Business. Right now, I support Molly Friedrich and Lucy Carson, in addition to handling audio rights for the agency. I’m an eclectic reader, and hope that my list will showcase this range as well—in addition to fiction and nonfiction, I also hope to represent select YA.

For fiction, I’m looking for character-driven upmarket and literary fiction. In particular, I’m always driven by the need to understand people and discover the various kinks that aren’t visible from the surface—what drives them? What do they desire most but can’t get? I’m particularly enamored by genre-bending works, fiction with a speculative or magical bent, literary suspense, narratives about complex family relationships, and those that subvert forms of power, specifically neocolonialist ones.

My tastes in Young Adult are similar, although with more focus on speculative concepts and maybe surprisingly, contemporary rom-coms like LOVE & GELATO, ANNA & THE FRENCH KISS, and TELL ME THREE THINGS.

In nonfiction, I gravitate toward memoirs that balance personal narratives with engaging and insightful research and/or cultural analysis. I’m also looking for narrative nonfiction that is resistant and radical in nature, that questions why we have the institutions, ideas, and systems we have in place. I often think about the legacies of colonialism, how it haunts and perpetuates in various forms in the modern age (such as the environment and in capitalism), but also about collective action and its sense of possibilities and what the future could look like. I’d love to hear from you if your work is in this space.

Regardless of category, I’m looking for a singular voice that will guide me through any literary terrain and is not afraid of pushing against the status quo. And above all, it’s important to me that my list is filled with writers from historically underrepresented communities, as well as diasporic voices.

In my spare time, you can find me dancing, watching anime, or hiking. I’m fluent in Japanese, and you also probably don’t want to bad-mouth me in Mandarin 😉

Five non-agency books I loved: EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU; SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS; HEADS OF THE COLORED PEOPLE; GOODBYE, VITAMIN; THE SUBTLE KNIFE.